is mother's face only a short time before.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

A MATCH-MAKING MAMMA.

"Don't you think, George, that dear Beatrice looks rather pale and
thin?" said Mrs Canninge.

"Who--Beatrice Lambent?" said the young man, raising his eyes from his
paper at breakfast.

"Yes, dear; very thin and pale indeed."

"Now you mention it yes, of course; but so she always did."

"Slightly, George; and there was a delicacy in the tinting of her skin--
liliaceous, I might say, but she was not pale."

"Bravo, dear! That's a capital word. Do for a Tennysonian poem--`the
Lay of the Liliaceous Lady.'"

"I was speaking seriously, my dear," said Mrs Canninge stiffly. "I beg
that you will not make those absurd remarks."

"Certainly not, dear; but liliaceous is not a serious way of speaking of
a lady."

"Then I will not use it, George, for I wish to speak to you very
seriously about Beatrice Lambent."

The young man winced a little, but said nothing. He merely rustled his
newspaper and assumed an air of attention.

"I don't think that dear Beatrice is well, George."

"Tell Lambent to send her off to the seaside for a good blow."

"To pine away and grow worse, George."

"To the interior, then, mother."

"To still pine away, George."

"Try homeopathy, then. Like cures like. Send her into Surrey amongst
the fir-trees--pine to cure pine."

Mrs Canninge sipped her coffee.

"Or get Miss Penstemon to give her a few pilules out of one of her
bottles--the one she selected when I came down on the Czar last year at
that big hedge."

"When you have ended your badinage, my dear son, I shall be ready to go
on."

"Done. Finis!" said George Canninge promptly.

"I have been noting the change in dear Beatrice for some time past."

"I have not," said the young man. "She always was very thin and
genteel-looking."

"Extremely, George; but of late there has been a subdued sadness--a
pained look in her pensive eyes, that troubles me a good deal, for it is
bad."

"Perhaps she has some trouble on her mind, dear. You should try and
comfort her."

"_I_ could not comfort her, my dear. The comfort must come from other
lips than mine. Hers is a mental grief."

"Why, you don't mean to say that she is in love?" said George Canninge,
laughing.

"I mean to say that the poor girl is suffering cruelly from a feeling of
neglect, and it grieves me very, very much."

"Send the swain for whom she sighs to comfort her, my